


through the trance

by starstrung



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Communing with the Wildmother, M/M, Nightmares, aka fucking on a shrine, but lots of tenderness before that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 11:42:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstrung/pseuds/starstrung
Summary: Once he’s communed with the Wildmother, Fjord keeps wanting to do it again.





	through the trance

Caduceus likes taking the last watch. It means he’s slept long enough to feel restored, and he gets to watch the night turn into dawn, watch the light creep up over the horizon and slowly turn the sky a gentle pink, then a pale blue. Morning never rushes. He likes that.

There’s a bit of a storm going on tonight, a scattering of rainclouds blowing across the plains so that every ten minutes or so, he’ll hear drops on the top of Caleb’s dome, see the shadow of falling rain come and then go again. Caduceus sits inside the dome and sticks his head out every now and then to scan the horizon — the land is so flat here that if anything approaches them, he will be able to see it from a long ways off.

Behind him, Fjord is having a nightmare.

It’s not the first time. Fjord’s sleep has been disturbed for a while now, but it’s been particularly bad lately. Sometimes he sounds like he can’t breathe.

Caduceus moves over to him. He tries his best to be gentle, even though Fjord’s eyes are rolling back in his head, even though he’s whimpering in the back of his throat. Caduceus wants to gather him up tightly so that Fjord knows he’s safe, but he doesn’t want Fjord’s nightmares to turn his touch into just another chokehold.

Instead Caduceus just puts a hand on his shoulder. “Mister Fjord, wake up.”

Fjord doesn’t wake. His fingernails are leaving half-moon marks in his palms.

Next to him, Beau’s eyes are open in the dark. She looks like she’s been awake for a while. “It’s getting worse,” she says quietly.

“I know,” Caduceus says. “I hear him every night.”

Fjord is calming down. Perhaps it’s the sound of their voices. Although he still thrashes wildly, he’s stopped whimpering. Fjord never cries out, even when it’s bad. If you weren’t paying attention, you’d never hear him. 

“It’s all right,” Caduceus soothes. “You’re dreaming. It’s a dream.”

“You can help him, right?” Beau says. “I was never good at all the meditation shit.”

“I can try,” Caduceus says. It still strikes him that his friends have such faith in him. He doesn’t think they would recognize it as faith, but _ he _ does. “I can help him if he’ll let me. That’s the hard part, though.”

“He’s so fucking stubborn,” Beau says, protectively.

Fjord has mostly stopped thrashing now. His brow is slick with sweat, and the front of his shirt is soaked. The first time he opens his eyes, he recognizes Caduceus immediately.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Did I wake everyone?”

Caduceus looks towards Beau. She’s pretending to be asleep. “No,” Caduceus says. “I was already awake.”

Fjord sits up shakily. He’s still terrified. Caduceus can see him trying to hide it, and failing, which is how he knows that Fjord won’t be able to go back to sleep.

“Why don’t you finish up watch with me?” Caduceus says. “I could use the company.”

“Sure,” Fjord says, and they go to the edge of the dome, picking their way carefully between their sleeping friends. Caduceus finds his lookout spot again. Outside, it’s stopped raining for now, and the plains are clear. Morning continues its unhurried approach. Caduceus can still hear the animal sound of Fjord’s ragged breathing. 

“I know what you’re going to say,” Fjord says.

“And what’s that?” Caduceus says, with interest. He’s not sure why, but he wants to know whether or not he likes the Caduceus that Fjord keeps in his head.

“That this is something I shouldn’t be afraid of. That I can work through it,” Fjord says. He doesn’t sound like he trusts this other Caduceus very much.

Caduceus hums thoughtfully. “I suppose I would say that. But I’d also tell you that it’s going to be a lot of work.”

“How?” Fjord says. “He finds me in my sleep. I can’t even defend myself like this. I have no powers, I—”.

“Hush now,” Caduceus says, and Fjord hunches his shoulders, bows his head. “He still punishes you because he still has power over you. That doesn’t have to be true.”

“I broke the pact,” Fjord says. “I destroyed the sword.”

“A sword isn’t the only thing he gave you,” Caduceus says. “He gave you fear, too. And fear gives him power.”

Fjord laughs, bitterly. “Then I’m a coward.”

Caduceus looks him over. Fjord doesn’t know it, but he’s already done the bravest thing Caduceus thinks a person can do. He took the chain in his hands and he broke it.

“You’re really not,” Caduceus says. “Having fear isn’t the same thing as being a coward. You can do a lot of things with fear. You don’t have to let it control you.”

Fjord looks unconvinced. “How do I do that?”

“I can show you, if you’ll let me,” Caduceus says. “But it’s up to you whether it works or not.”

“You mean talk to the Wildmother,” Fjord says. He hesitates. “I’d like that.”

Caduceus smiles at him. “Good.”

So that they don’t disturb everyone else, Caduceus takes them a little ways off from the dome. They sit there on the flattened grass, and Caduceus lights a few sticks of incense. Fjord is careful to arrange his limbs in the same way as Caduceus’s.

“Does the incense help?” Fjord says. He sniffs tentatively at the smoke.

“Any honest cleric will tell you that half of religion is theatrics,” Caduceus says, shrugging, and Fjord laughs, as if startled.

“All right then. What do I do now?” he asks.

“Close your eyes. Think about the sun.”

There’s a quirk of Fjord’s lips like he wants to smile. Caduceus closes his own eyes. “Do you feel it?” he asks.

“Yes,” Fjord says, sounding amused. “It’s pretty warm.”

“Focus,” Caduceus chides. “This won’t work otherwise.”

“Sorry,” Fjord says, and takes a deep breath.

Caduceus begins. “It’s rising over this entire part of the world, bit by bit. Every dawn the creatures of this world are born anew. Every tree root and flying eagle and swimming fish.”

Fjord doesn’t say anything. Caduceus can hear him breathing, deep and measured and entranced. He goes on.

“Nature is about constant turnover and renewal. Think about the breaths you take, your lungs expanding and contracting. Every part of your body is dying and then being reborn and then dying again each and every second, and it’s keeping you alive in the meantime, Mister Fjord. One day this intricate, marvelous, divinity-bestowed body is gonna return to the earth and make something new. That’s so great.”

Caduceus opens his eyes for a moment. Fjord has his brows knitted together, lost to it. Caduceus continues to speak, guiding him through the meditation, the commune. The sun rises over them.

He’s not sure exactly when he first feels her presence. It’s a gentle press against his thoughts, a slow awakening of his senses that he only encounters in half-dreams and trances. The Wildmother is here, and suddenly, just for a second, her presence makes the entire world light up. Caduceus can feel every calling animal, every uncurling fern, every ant casting its shadow across the plain.

Beside him, Fjord lets out a breath, as if he’s been punched. She is with him too.

It is a moment, a mind-shattering moment of nature’s cacophony, and then it’s silent again.

“Holy shit,” Fjord says. They both open their eyes and look at each other, both changed by that.

“Yeah,” Caduceus says, grinning. He’s never gonna be tired of that. “That was good. You did so good. Look at you. She let you see through her eyes, right?”

Fjord’s eyes look wet. He nods.

“Is it always like that?” he asks.

“Sometimes,” Caduceus says. “Rarely that powerful.” Once when his family was still partially together, he sat beneath the spray of a waterfall with his sister. They clung to the rocks and didn’t eat anything for five days except bread and water. The Wildmother came to them then, to him and his sister. For a week after, he couldn’t stop hearing birdsong and weeping with longing.

It’s been a long time since Caduceus has communed alongside another person. He didn’t realize how much he missed it. Fjord is — Fjord is something he _ needed_.

A breeze blows across the plain and Fjord shivers violently. His shirt was soaked with sweat and now the wind is getting chilly. Caduceus takes off the woolen shawl he wrapped around his shoulders when he woke up to take watch. He reaches out to put it on Fjord.

He’s not expecting Fjord to mistake the gesture as an embrace, to lean into the circle of Caduceus’s arms and fit his mouth to the side of his neck.

Caduceus goes still. Fjord presses one open-mouthed, wet kiss there, then another. Caduceus can feel the sharp points of Fjord’s growing tusks.

“Caduceus, you — that was fucking amazing,” Fjord says, still sounding half-entranced, feverish.

It would be so easy to guide Fjord through this too. It would be — but it would be wrong. Caduceus puts a hand on Fjord’s shoulder, and pushes him away. 

“Oh,” Fjord says, drawing back. Some of the fever in his eyes fades. “I thought—”.

“Maybe now’s not a good time for this,” Caduceus says, as gently as he can.

“Fuck,” Fjord says. He won’t look at him. “I’m sorry.”

This won’t do. Caduceus takes Fjord by the chin, and lifts his face up to him. Fjord’s eyes have gone blank, guarded. A mask where there wasn’t one before. “Don’t be sorry. Your head’s not at the right place for this just now.” Caduceus remembers his first time seeing all of life’s bounty revealed for him. Feeling hyper-aware of just the air on his skin. He probably got himself off three times that first day. That was worship, too.

Caduceus finishes tucking the shawl around Fjord’s shoulders.

“Thank you, Caduceus,” Fjord says, quiet, and Caduceus gets the sense that he’s thanking him for more than a bit of warm wool.

Caduceus stands, and then helps Fjord up. “I’m with you,” he tells him. “I’m not leaving you to deal with this alone.”

When they get back to the dome, the rest of the group is just waking up. Beau looks at Caduceus, silently asking him how it went. Caduceus is worried for a moment that she’ll be able to tell what happened just by looking at them. He feels like the side of his neck is burning.

But they did make progress. He’ll just have to work on the rest. Caduceus smiles at her, and nods. 

“I am right here, you know,” Fjord grumbles. He’s seen them exchanging glances.

“You kick in your sleep. Next time I kick back,” Beau tells him sharply, as if she doesn’t care.

  


Once he’s communed with the Wildmother, Fjord keeps wanting to do it again. He sits up with Caduceus for most watches, now. They’ll bend their heads together over some incense, and Caduceus will guide him through the meditation. Fjord seems to do better when Caduceus speaks.

The nightmares start coming less frequently.

They don’t get as powerful a visit as they did that first time, but that’s all right. Sometimes he’ll hear a whisper, feel a distant echo of her presence, and that will be enough. He’ll look up to Fjord, and see that same awe mirrored back. Just those moments mean so much to Caduceus. He’s the happiest he’s been in a long, long time.

Fjord doesn’t try to kiss him again. Sometimes after a particularly good meditation, Caduceus narrating the thin balance between nature’s mortality and immortality until his voice goes rough with emotion, Fjord will look like he wants to, again. His eyes will go a bit dark, a bit unfocused. They’ll linger, sometimes. Caduceus will be careful not to touch him then.

He doesn’t know what to do with that hungry look in Fjord’s eyes, doesn’t know whether or not it’s good for Fjord. Uk’otoa, Caduceus knows, encouraged hunger, demanded it. Maybe it’s a habit Fjord has to break.

In his weaker moments, though, Caduceus thinks of trying to sate that hunger. Of giving Fjord what he wants.

He just isn’t not sure if Fjord is hungry for the Wildmother’s blessing, or for _ him_.

They travel north, to the coastline. They’re chasing a rumor that someone who looked like Yasha passed through. Rumors are all they’ve got of her at this point.

“Will Fjord be okay seeing the ocean?” Beau asks Caduceus over camp. She’s helping him with dinner, squatting over a pile of potatoes and carrots that she’s peeling and cutting up into pieces. 

Caduceus looks to where Fjord is bickering with Nott as she mixes together her alchemical powders. The dark circles under his eyes have begun to fade. His skin is starting to look less bruised. Fjord looks good, strong, his eyes crinkling up with a laugh when Jester says something funny.

Caduceus makes himself look away, only to find that Beau is smirking at him.

“I think Fjord’ll be fine,” Caduceus says, focusing on the stew. It needs more salt, he thinks.

“Uh huh. _ Fine_,” Beau says. He’s not sure how she manages to make one syllable sound so suggestive. He blushes.

Of course Beau notices. “Holy shit,” she says. He wishes she would stop staring. “I was just kidding.”

“Are we talking about this?” he asks her. He resists the urge to flatten his ears back, like he used to do when his siblings would tease him. He hasn’t done that since he was a kid still getting his fungi mixed up with his lichens.

“I mean, I’m pretty fucking bored. I still have a lot of potatoes to peel,” Beau says, shrugging. “So is this a thing? You and Fjord?”

“I don’t think you understand,” he says. “Fjord’s come a long way. This would — complicate things.”

“Would it?” Beau asks. “Maybe it would help. Maybe it would be good for both of you, you know?”

“Fjord is — he’s looking for someone to swear oaths to,” Caduceus tells her. “Those oaths should be to the Wildmother.” _ Not to me_, he doesn’t say. “It’s my job to set him on that path. I shouldn’t distract him.”

Beau makes a face. “Sounds like some cleric bullshit. Except, no, Jester always says what she really means. Which means it’s just Caduceus bullshit. So what _ you _ want, Cad?”

“I want,” he says, firmly, “for him to be safe.” 

Beau looks at him. She’s serious, now. “So do I,” she says, and goes back to the potatoes.

  


The sun is beginning to set when they reach the coast the next day. It’s nothing like it is in Nicodranus. Instead of bright blue, welcoming waters, the ocean here is violent and gray, beating restlessly against the cliffs.

Fjord’s shoulders are stiff. Caduceus watches him walk to an outcropping of rock and look out at the ocean below. He hovers nearby just in case.

“I’m all right, Cad,” Fjord says. 

Caduceus nods. There’s a lucidity to Fjord’s voice, a sureness. “Yeah, you are,” he says, pleased. “You fought him back.”

Fjord turns to look at him. “Because of you.”

Caduceus exhales. “No, I just helped. The Wildmother’s the one who protected you.”

Fjord gives him a strange look, almost like he’s disappointed. “Yes, she did,” he says. “I suppose we should set up camp. I was thinking we could meditate on the beach this time. In the surf.”

Caduceus blinks. “Are you sure?” he asks. Last time Fjord stood in the ocean, he’d looked empty, vacant afterwards.

“I’m sure,” Fjord says. There is a hard, determined set to his jaw. “I don’t know if Uk’otoa is still listening or paying attention to me. I don’t know if he sent all those nightmares himself, or if it’s just, you know,” Fjord laughs, “my fucking head sending me dreams where I choke to death. Either way, I want to send a message. That I don’t _ belong _to him anymore. What do you think?”

Caduceus grins at him. “I think that’s a great idea.”

Together with the rest of the group, they descend the cliffs to the beach, finding a segment where it isn’t as steep, and they can use the roots of the tough coastland scrub as handholds. Here, the walls of the cliffsides curve in on each other, making a cove of sorts, where the wind isn’t as bad and they’re hidden from view. They set up camp there.

Caduceus and Fjord wake up for the last watch. The sun is just beginning to rise up over the sea. There are icebergs in the distant horizon, so massive that they look like white-peaked mountains.

“Didn’t realize it would be so fucking cold by the water,” Fjord says, his breath leaving in white puffs.

“Here, I thought it would be a good idea to prepare this spell.” Caduceus beckons for Fjord to give him his hand. He does, and Caduceus whispers a quick prayer to the Wildmother over their joined hands, giving them both protection against cold.

Suddenly, it feels about ten times warmer. Fjord shudders, and his hand tightens in Caduceus’s. “Oh, that feels much better.”

“It’ll last for an hour,” Caduceus says, and gives Fjord’s hand a squeeze before letting go.

“Then we’d better get to it,” Fjord says, and begins undressing. Caduceus does the same. They’ve seen each other in various states of undress so many times. It’s okay for him to look, Caduceus thinks, so he does. Fjord is well-muscled, and slender. Caduceus can see the scar that Yasha left across his chest the day she almost killed him.

They leave their clothes on a nearby rock and walk into the surf. The water should be icy cold, but the spell makes it seem pleasantly cool instead. 

“I miss doing magic,” Fjord says. “Doing something like this. I took it for granted.”

“You can learn to do it again,” Caduceus says. “This time without something like Uk’otoa holding the leash.”

“That’s the idea,” Fjord says, quirking a smile.

The water is up to their calves now, so they stop and sit down, letting the waves buoy them, making them feel weightless every time the tide washes in. Caduceus has never meditated in the ocean before. But then, this is the Wildmother’s domain too. This is where her wildness runs deep, deeper than any mountain chasm. 

They commune. The trance hits Caduceus, like it does, the words flowing out of him effortlessly until he’s not even sure what he says, only that he has to yell it to Fjord over the sound of crashing waves. It’s primal in a way that other meditations never are, and Caduceus loses himself for a moment in the ritual of it, the calmness.

The Wildmother doesn’t come.

When Caduceus resurfaces from the trance, Fjord’s eyes are open. He looks disappointed.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Fjord says.

Caduceus shrugs. “It’s not an exact science. It never is. The important thing is the worship of it, that you called out to her at all. That’s what matters.”

“I know,” Fjord says. “Still, I thought—”. He chews his lip. “What if the reason she didn’t come is because Uk’otoa is still — is still—”.

Caduceus frowns. “I don’t think so. If I know anything, it’s that she wants you on this path. I don’t think Uk’otoa could block her powers like that.”

“What if he comes back?” Fjord says. “What if I dream again? It always—” Fjord puts a hand on his chest, as if to remind himself that he can still breathe. He rarely talks about his dreams. “It kills me, slowly. It takes its time.”

“If it comes back,” Caduceus says, “then you use the Wildmother’s blessing to fight away the fear. I know that you can. You’re stronger than it. It wouldn’t need your service so badly otherwise.”

Fjord smiles, a little rueful.“I’m being dramatic, aren’t I? All right. I suppose we can try again another day. You must be getting tired of me tagging along like this.”

Caduceus stands up carefully, so as to not lose his balance in the water and loose sand. Fjord manages to do it much more gracefully. “Never,” Caduceus says smiling. “I’d been neglecting my meditations. This was what I needed too.”

“Wait, before we head back to the group—” Fjord grabs Caduceus by the wrist when he turns around to leave. “I’ve been meaning to—” and he turns his head up and kisses Caduceus.

The momentum is too much, because Caduceus instinctively leans forward to kiss him _ back _, and it overbalances both of them. They fall back onto the ground with a splash, Fjord chuckling beneath him.

“I think I need to work on my timing,” he says. There is wet sand in his hair. He looks beautiful. Caduceus wants to kiss him again, but he—.

“Are you sure about this?” Caduceus asks, because he must. “You’re still new to this. You’re not good at separating the trance from everything else just yet. This isn’t — it just affects you like this, is all.” 

“Cad, this isn’t a trance,” Fjord says. Caduceus looks, but there is no trace of divinity-fever in Fjord’s eyes. “This is me, wanting to kiss you.” 

He presses up against Caduceus and kisses him again, wet and slow, tasting like saltwater. He’s good at this, in a way that Caduceus isn’t, but Fjord doesn’t seem to mind, keeps making pleased noises between kisses. Fjord does something, tilts his head, opens their lips, and then Caduceus’s tongue is slipping into Fjord’s mouth.

“Oh,” Caduceus says, pressing into it. He wants, with a sudden intensity, to leave his mark here, to have them both be made as two intertwined things in the sea. Just two more creatures of the ocean, taking their pleasure from one another. It pleases him when Fjord bares his throat so that Caduceus can suck at his racing pulse; it pleases him when he bites down, and Fjord gasps.

“I’ve stopped having dreams about Uk’otoa, you know,” Fjord says, breathlessly.

“I know,” Caduceus says, tasting the salt on Fjord’s skin. It never made him angry before, but it makes him angry now, that a cursed being such as Uk’otoa twisted something deep inside Fjord, _ used _him.

Fjord says, “I dream about you instead.” He tilts his hips up, so that Caduceus can feel the hardening length of Fjord’s cock, pressing up against his thigh. Beneath him, Fjord groans.

A wave washes over them both, and this time, instead of pleasant coolness, it’s so icy that Caduceus can’t breathe, can’t think through the cold, can only hear blood pounding in his ears. The protection spell has worn off.

“Fuck!” Fjord says, sitting up out of the water. His lips are already turning blue. Another wave hits — it’s difficult to even draw a breath.

“Hold on, my dear, hold on,” Caduceus says, grasping Fjord to him. Caduceus’s teeth are chattering so violently that he can barely say the words, but then he feels the spell take hold again. The cold goes away — color returns to Fjord’s face, and Caduceus can feel his fingers again. They’re both still pressed together, chest to toe.

“Let’s absolutely never do that again,” Fjord says, and then he begins to laugh. Caduceus laughs too, and they clutch each other as the waves wash over them both.

  


Yasha was here.

They go to the village where a trader saw someone matching Yasha’s description, traveling with a strange group of companions. They didn’t all pass through the village, but Yasha bought supplies from his store. The trader remembers her eyes — one bright blue-green, and one violet. They missed her by three days.

“Friend of yours?” the trader asks, looking between their stricken faces.

“You could say that,” Caleb says. “She’s someone we used to know.”

“You came a long way for someone you _ used _to know,” the trader says, but he subsides when Caleb hands him a gold coin.

“She could be anywhere by now,” Beau says, as they make out of the village.

“This is the closest we’ve been to her so far,” Caleb tells her. “For all we know, she could still be nearby.”

“She’s still traveling with _ them _,” Jester says. She’s uncharacteristically solemn, and Beau silently tugs her in close to her, tucks Jester’s head beneath her chin as they walk.

Fjord is silent. Caduceus knows that he still doesn’t think they should be looking for Yasha. Fjord sees Caduceus looking over at him, and makes a face.

“Are you two going to be _ praying _ together during watch again?” Nott asks, popping up out of nowhere. Caduceus doesn’t startle very easily, but Fjord does — he flinches spectacularly.

“Nott, what’d I say about sneaking up on people?” Fjord grumbles.

“If you were paying attention, you would have seen me coming,” Nott says, unrepentant. “Anyway, speaking of paying attention, during watch tonight—”

“I don’t know if we’ll meditate tonight, Nott,” Fjord says quickly, looking to Caduceus. “We haven’t decided yet.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Caduceus says. “If Yasha is nearby, we should be alert.” And he knows that if he tries to meditate with Fjord tonight, he won’t be able to focus on the Wildmother, let alone on their surroundings.

Fjord sighs, deflating a little. “Yes, that’s a good point.”

“Not to tell you how to do your job or anything,” Nott says, waving her hands. “But I, personally, would _ hate _ to have my head chopped off in the middle of the night by my brainwashed former friend because the two people keeping watch were busy rolling around on the beach together.”

“Hey!” Fjord yells, but Nott is gone with a flash of sharp teeth, already disappearing behind Caleb.

“Does _ everyone _ know?” Fjord says, under his breath.

Caduceus checks behind him, not bothering to be subtle about it. Jester and Beau look up from their conversation — both with wide smirks. Even Caleb gives an apologetic shrug of his shoulders.

“I think everyone knows,” Caduceus says, which he figures means that he can hold Fjord’s hand as they walk. Fjord doesn’t complain after that.

The plan is to spend the day trying to pick up Yasha’s trail, and then teleport back to Rosohna in the morning if they don’t find anything. Jester has tried scrying on Yasha but the spell has always been blocked — clearly Yasha and her new companions have taken protective measures. Instead, Caleb and Jester polymorph into eagles and spend the day circling in the air, while the rest of them try to pick up the trail on the ground.

By the end of the day, both Jester and Caleb are out of spells, exhausted with flying around, and the rest of them are sore and angry. As soon as camp is set up, Caduceus gets to work making dinner. 

His mother used to joke that a bit of hot food in the belly could raise any spirit, which was why grave clerics should blow on their food before eating it. Caduceus took this very seriously as a child.

“There has to be a better way to find her,” Beau says. She has Jester’s head pillowed in her lap.

“There isn’t,” Fjord says quietly.

“You want to give up on her,” Beau says angrily, or as angrily as she can without disturbing Jester.

“She gave up on us first,” Fjord says hotly. “She tried to _ kill us_.”

Beau scowls at him, torn between wanting to argue further and not wanting to wake up Jester.

“We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” Caleb says. He’s so tired that his eyelids are drooping. After setting up the dome, he collapsed on his bedding, with Frumpkin curled up in a tight ball by his side. Caduceus makes sure to give him an extra large serving of dinner. Nott makes sure he eats it.

Caduceus isn’t as tapped out as the rest of them, so he takes first watch. It’s uneventful and cold, and he spends it wrapped up in his shawl by the fire, staring out into the vast dark. He tries not to think about Yasha. He’s tired of losing family.

He hands over the next watch to Nott and lies down. It feels like he’s barely been asleep for a few minutes before he wakes up to the sound of Fjord screaming.

It’s a terrible noise, hoarse and desperate and echoing through the mountain pass until it doesn’t even sound like it came from a person.

Beau gets there first. There is blood frothing at Fjord’s lips — he’s choking on it. Beau tries to turn his head to the side, but he immediately lashes out, one of his fists almost knocking her in the jaw.

“What the fuck!” she yells.

“We have to hold him down before he hurts himself,” Caduceus says, trying to stay calm. It’s hard — this is the worst he’s ever seen Fjord.

With everyone’s help, they manage to pin him down. Caleb and Beau both take a leg each. Jester holds down his arms. This just makes Fjord more agitated, but at least they’re able to keep him from hurting anyone. Nott hovers nearby, her eyes luminous and wide.

Caduceus turns Fjord’s head at an angle so that he won’t choke. He bends his head down. “I’m here, Fjord, I’m here,” he says in a low voice, trying to keep it level. “You’re all right, I promise. I promise you’re all right. You just have to wake up, my dear.” He takes a deep breath, and prays to the Wildmother, “Please let him wake up.”

Fjord’s eyes whip open, but he’s not conscious yet. His eyes are wide, unseeing — he doesn’t recognize Caduceus.

“Help me,” he whispers.

“Call out to the Wildmother,” Caduceus tells him. “Can you do that for me? She’ll protect you. She can protect you.” Caduceus wishes he could lean his forehead against Fjord’s and find him in whatever nightmare he’s trapped in. He’d fight the leviathan himself if it meant he could drag Fjord out of its grasp.

Fjord tries to fight them off again, tries to buck out of their hold, but they manage to keep him down. He’s weakening, bit by bit. Caduceus only hopes that he’s winning the fight inside his head.

Fjord’s voice is gone from screaming. He’s mouthing something, too quiet to hear. Caduceus puts his ear to Fjord’s lips.

“Mother,” Fjord says, in a croaking whisper. “Mother.”

Caduceus feels a rush of relief, of pride, of love. Fjord is praying — he’s fighting! He puts his hands on Fjord’s chest, and prays too. Someone brings him lit incense and sets it around them. Nott, perhaps. Caduceus only remembers the trance.

“Guide this one,” he says. “He’s come a long way, I’ve seen it. When it’s his time to go, let it be in the arms of the earth, not the coils of the serpent.”

Fjord’s chest heaves beneath his hands. Caduceus tries to consider it a good sign that he’s breathing at all.

“He needs your protection,” Caduceus says. “He needs the love you showed me, when I didn’t have anyone.”

And then — and then there are hands on his shoulders. There is a warm breath against the back of his neck. She moves to put her hands over his own, laying them on Fjord’s chest.

_ He doesn’t need my protection or my love, my Clay_, the Wildmother says, kind and radiant and glorious. _ He has yours. _

Fjord gasps awake.

  


Caduceus cradles him in his arms. Fjord puts his head against Caduceus’s shoulder and holds on, holds on.

Caduceus cannot speak. He still feels the Wildmother around them both. He can’t shake the immensity of what just happened.

“I heard you calling me,” Fjord says. His voice is raspy and painful. “Uk’otoa was — breaking me. But I heard you, I remembered. I chased away the fear.”

  


They teleport back to Rosohna in the morning, quiet and somber. Caduceus doesn’t let Fjord out of his sight until they get back to the house, and then they all retreat to their respective corners. Caduceus will gather them all again when it’s time to eat. He understands that sometimes you have to be left alone.

At dinner, he makes tea for Fjord, to soothe his throat. His voice is still only half there. Fjord helps him with the dishes afterwards, his shoulder set comfortably against Caduceus’s as they stand side by side.

Fjord follows him up to the garden after dinner. 

He walks up behind Caduceus and presses him against the tree and kisses him. His clever fingers find the catches on Caduceus’s clothing and open his shirt, so that he can run his hands up Caduceus’s waist.

“Are you here to pray?” Caduceus asks, and tries biting at Fjord’s lip. He likes the sound Fjord makes when he does that, like he wants Caduceus to do it again.

“Something like that,” Fjord says, smiling. He gets to his knees. He opens Caduceus’s pants and takes his cock out and sucks it into his mouth. 

Caduceus presses his fingers into the rough bark of the tree. Fjord is — Fjord is _ good _ at this, takes Caduceus deeper until he’s hitting the back of his throat. And he’s clearly enjoying it too, keeps moaning around his cock until Caduceus is _ sure _he will be undone by this.

“Is this all right, Cad?” Fjord asks, pulling his mouth off with an obscene wet noise. He’s smirking a little, his lips still brushing the tip of Caduceus’s cock. Caduceus doesn’t understand how the sight of the trail of spit joining them fills him with so much _ want_. 

“What?” he asks, hazy.

Fjord’s smirk widens. “Isn’t this a shrine, technically? A holy place? Sure we should be doing this here?”

Caduceus raises his eyebrows at him. “You think the Wildmother doesn’t know about sex, Fjord?” He hauls Fjord up to his feet and leans in close to him. Fjord’s eyes widen with surprise. “You think when every manner of beast and being fucks, that they don’t do it with the Wildmother’s blessing?”

He reaches down and cups Fjord through his clothes. Fjord curls into it, and _ whines_, his voice breaking and then giving out entirely. And then, he waits. He’s waiting for Caduceus to guide him. Well, all right.

“Take these off,” Caduceus says, and Fjord undresses. Before he tosses away his pants, Fjord takes a bottle out of his pocket. It’s filled with oil.

“Came prepared, did you?” Caduceus says, amused. 

“I want you — to fuck me.” Fjord’s voice is barely a whisper at this point, but he still manages to sound desperate.

Caduceus shushes him, gentle, presses a kiss to Fjord’s forehead. He guides him to the mattress that he has put beneath the tree canopy, he tells Fjord to lay down, to open himself up.

Fjord does. He slicks up his fingers, and fucks himself on them, panting noiselessly into the bedding. Caduceus watches, fascinated by the sight of it, pushes Fjord’s thighs apart so he can see it better. Fjord adds a third finger very quickly following the second, growing impatient. He nods when he’s ready.

Caduceus kisses Fjord, kisses his chin, his chest. “Easy, my dear, easy,” he says. “Let me see.”

He pulls Fjord’s hand away and slicks his own fingers up, slides them in deep. Fjord’s mouth falls open, he twists his hands in the sheets and _ writhes_. Caduceus gets the sense that if Fjord’s voice wasn’t gone, he’d be screaming again.

“Yeah, I think you’re ready,” Caduceus says, finds that his _ own _voice has gone slightly hoarse. He slicks up his cock and presses in.

He makes love to Fjord, there beneath the tree. If the Wildmother is aware of their presence, she doesn’t make herself known. Sometimes, though, it feels like maybe she’s opening up his senses, like she does during a commune. He thinks that might be why he can feel the force of Fjord’s arousal, rising beside his own like a wave. 

He covers Fjord’s body with his own, tucks him close to him, and says his name as one would say the name of their beloved.

When Fjord comes, he’s silent. When Caduceus follows him not long after, he’s pretty sure the ground shakes with it.

They curl up together, afterwards, Caduceus pulling Fjord to him so that they can trade kisses.

He pulls away, smiling when Fjord tries to chase him for another kiss. “Do you wanna meditate now?” Caduceus asks him.

Fjord huffs a silent laugh at him, and buries his face into Caduceus’s chest.

Caduceus lets him sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/star_strung).


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